Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Jigsaw puzzles tend to run along the same basic concept. You have an
image split up in to tiny pieces. There are a lot of different images
out there and the puzzles vary in size from 10 pieces up to the
thousands. You don’t see a lot of innovation. Yes, they had 3-D
puzzles, which I bought and tried. But I’ve never seen a jigsaw puzzle
and thought, “Wow! Now that’s a lot more interesting than your average
puzzle!”

Many years ago, someone got me the Murder Most Artful
jigsaw puzzle. You’re given a story and a puzzle. First, you read the
story about an art forger found dead near a painting. When you’re done,
you put the puzzle together to see the painting that he was working
on. You have to use the story and the painting to figure out who did
it. Once you’ve figured it out or given up, you can read the solution
on the last page. (The solution is printed backwards, so you’ll need
a mirror.)

I did the puzzle many years ago. Even then, it
wasn’t overly difficult to figure out. The puzzle is 500
pieces, which wasn’t that difficult for me to put together. When I did
put it together, I don’t remember it taking me that long to figure out
who did it. (In case you want to do the puzzle, I won’t ruin it for
you.)

Since putting the puzzle together is the first step in
figuring out who did it, you don’t get a preview image of the puzzle.
This wasn’t really an issue. I’ve done puzzles without a preview. I
was able to finish the puzzle before figuring it out. However, I have
to admit that you don’t really need the entire puzzle to get it. In
fact, it’s entirely possible that you’ll figure it out before the puzzle
is finished.

Since the puzzle was so easy for me, I never really
checked to see if the puzzle was part of a series. Now that I’m dong
the review, I did look. It was hard to find stuff because of the name,
but I was able to find at least one other puzzle that had an Alfred
Hitchcock theme.

I don’t know that I’d recommend it, but I don’t
think I’d recommend against getting it. For someone that’s used to
1000+ pieces, this will by no means be a challenge for you. The only
thing it will provide is a little distraction. I don’t do jigsaw
puzzles much any more, but I don’t know if I’d get the other puzzle if I
was. I just wish Epinions had an ‘indifferent’ button for the
recommendation.